Bryan Nihei

A citizen’s quick actions in Cody last week led to an arrest in connection with at least two auto burglaries.

Between early January and early February, two dozen residents reported that someone had gone through their vehicles in the middle of the night, but Cody police were unable to gather enough evidence to make an arrest.

On the night of Feb. 1, however, Colton Johannsen spotted a man rummaging through a friend’s truck in the 1100 block of Cody’s 31st Street. The burglar fled, but Johannsen gave chase through the neighborhood. The 2019 Powell High School graduate ultimately caught the suspect, removed a knife from the man’s belt and detained him until police arrived.

When officers arrived at the scene around 9:30 p.m., they identified the man as 31-year-old Bryan Nihei of Powell.

Not only did Cody police arrest Nihei in connection with that night’s auto burglary, they also learned he was a wanted man in Big Horn County for a years-old felony theft case; additionally, Nihei is facing a felony drug charge in Carbon County, Montana, from an incident in December.

After being taken into custody, Nihei allegedly admitted to getting into two vehicles in Cody on the night of Feb. 1: the 2003 Toyota pickup owned by Johannsen’s friend and another in the same neighborhood. Nihei explained he was looking for money “so he could purchase milk and diapers for his two children,” Cody Police Detective Rick Tillery wrote in an affidavit. 

However, his girlfriend reportedly told police a different story, saying she’d given Nihei some money and the key to her vehicle and sent him to the store for milk around 7:30 p.m.; hours later, he called from jail and explained he’d been arrested.

Nihei told police he took nothing from the two vehicles he got into on the night of his arrest, charging documents say, but investigators have also been eyeing him as a suspect in a series of similar crimes.

City of Cody residents reported 25 auto burglaries between Jan. 7 and Feb. 1 that all followed the exact same pattern, Tillery wrote: The culprit rummaged through the glove compartments and center consoles, tossed items around the passenger compartments and stole items ranging from a wallet and purse to gift cards, binoculars and a handgun.

Several of the burglaries took place late on Jan. 28 or early on Jan. 29 in the area of Elm Avenue, Tillery said, and police were able to obtain surveillance footage of the suspect. The man captured on camera is the same size as Nihei, police say, and he was wearing a pair of boots with “a very unique reflective pattern.”

When Nihei was arrested on Feb. 1, they found his girlfriend’s vehicle parked nearby, with a “considerable amount of property” inside. That property included a duffle bag, headphones, a small propane heater — and boots with reflective material on the side that appeared to match those from the surveillance footage, Tillery wrote. 

Meanwhile, Greybull Police Chief Bill Brenner told his Cody colleagues that Nihei had recently pawned a large number of items in Billings — providing documents that showed he’d sold items that included binoculars, a range finder, jewelry and musical instruments, Tillery wrote.

When police interviewed Nihei’s girlfriend, she said he had not been living with her and said it was “almost like he’s ‘living a double life,’” Tillery wrote.

Although the officer’s affidavit suggests Nihei may have been involved in the earlier burglaries — and Cody police have said they have identified a “person of interest” in those cases — he has not been charged with any of those crimes.

“When asked about the other automobile burglaries, Nihei was not forthcoming and asked that we allow him several days to clear his mind and to think about it,” Tillery wrote.

In the meantime, Nihei has been charged with one felony count of burglary in connection with breaking into the Toyota pickup on Feb. 1. His bond in the case is set at $20,000 — and that’s on top of a $15,000 bond he faces in a pending case out of Big Horn County.

The felony theft charge dates back to the summer of 2019, when Nihei reportedly stole $3,658 worth of rare coins from his girlfriend’s mother’s home in Greybull. He was implicated when his girlfriend discovered that he’d pawned some of the coins in Powell and notified her mother, Greybull Police Chief Brenner wrote in an affidavit.

In January 2020, Nihei reportedly confessed to stealing and selling the coins and turned himself in. Nihei was released on bond a couple weeks later. On Nov. 18, he pleaded guilty to the theft charge as part of a plea deal with Big Horn County prosecutors that called for him to serve three years of supervised probation. Before he was sentenced, however, Nihei ran into more trouble.

Around 8:30 a.m. on Dec. 10, Trooper Eric Gardner of the Montana Highway Patrol responded to a request to check on the welfare of a man sleeping in a running car along Montana Highway 310. When Gardner rapped on the window to rouse the man, Nihei appeared “startled, confused and highly agitated,” charging documents say. Nihei reportedly said he’d “been driving all night” from Greybull to Billings, which is typically a two-hour trip.

Trooper Gardner caught a “strong odor of a sweet-smelling substance” in the vehicle, and spotted a bong on the front passenger seat. Eventually, the officer would find a marijuana grinder, marijuana seeds, pipes, paraphernalia, a pouch containing several small bags of apparent methamphetamine and a Dramamine container that held suspected meth, heroin and pink pills of amphetamine and dextroamphetamine.

In late December, the Carbon County Attorney’s Office charged Nihei with three felony drug possession charges plus one misdemeanor count of possessing drug paraphernalia in connection with the stop.

Then on Jan. 27, Big Horn County Attorney Marcia Bean moved to have Nihei re-arrested and his bond revoked, citing the Carbon County charges and his failure to complete a pre-sentence interview with probation and parole.

It was five days later that Johannsen apprehended the suspect in Cody. 

Nihei agreed late last week to have his auto burglary case transferred to Park County’s District Court, where he’ll next enter a plea. In the meantime, he remains in custody in the Park County Detention Center.